AI Self-Sufficiency Lab

Learn to use AI to stand on your own.

A hands-on program that helps newcomers and immigrants use AI to reach better work. Built on the book The Self-Sufficient Immigrant in the Age of AI.


AI is a tool. Not an authority.

People leave knowing how to direct it, how to check its answers, and how to keep their own judgment in charge.

The idea

The book, taught in a room.

The Lab turns the most useful chapters of the book into short, practical workshops. Every session is hands-on, built around a real task you actually need done.

Cover of The Self-Sufficient Immigrant in the Age of AI

Why now

The ground is shifting under the people who can least afford it.

Newcomers often arrive with real skills and end up in survival jobs. Now those jobs are being automated too, from driverless taxis on Bay Area freeways to warehouse robots.

92%of U.S. jobs now ask for at least one digital skill.National Skills Coalition
1 in 5college-educated immigrants is stuck in unskilled work or unemployed.Migration Policy Institute
13%drop in entry-level jobs most exposed to AI since 2022.Stanford Digital Economy Lab

Who it is for

Built for the people the shift hits hardest.


Recently arrived families

Refugees and immigrants rebuilding here, many of them professionals back home now driving or working in warehouses. They learn to use AI to reach better work and handle the paperwork of a new life.


Young people finding their start

Teens and young adults from newcomer families who are out of work and school, learning to become the most capable person in the room instead of chasing a vanishing first job.


Women returning to work

Women coming back after raising a family, into office roles that AI is changing fastest, learning the skills those jobs now expect.

How it works

Short, hands-on, and honest.

01

A small group, a few hours a week for several weeks. Long enough to stick, short enough to finish.

02

Every session is practice on a real task: a résumé, a job search, a message to a school, a form.

03

Built on the U.S. Department of Labor's AI literacy framework, so the skills are current and recognized.

04

Practice only. No one uses their private information to learn.

You leave with a working résumé and a job plan, a simple card on using AI safely, and a clear next step.

Get involved

Three ways to build this with us.


Community partners

Bring the Lab to the people you serve. You provide the space and the group; we provide the curriculum and the teaching. A ready-to-run program that strengthens the outcomes you already work toward.


Sponsors

Back a cohort and open the Lab to a community that needs it. Your support comes with clear, reportable results you can point to.


Learners

Want to take part, or know someone who does? Tell us and we will let you know when the next group opens.

Start a conversation

Bring the Lab to your community.

We are building the first group now, in the Bay Area. Whether you lead an organization, want to sponsor a cohort, or want to take part, we would love to talk.

Built on the book The Self-Sufficient Immigrant in the Age of AI by Atta Arghandiwal and Sohrab Rasouli. The Lab is being built now. Details will firm up as the first cohort takes shape.